I have been running X1 on a Pentium D 3.2ghz and 4 gigs ram for ... well ever since X1 came out.  I have been able to run as many as 32 tracks of stereo using this setup as long as I keep the effects load low.   Usually I don't run into a problem.
 
During Black Friday, I 'impulse purchased' a Phenom II X4 945 quad core, gigabyte MB, and 4 gigs 1600 ram.  So why should I upgrade to Win7/Win8?  I realize I will be stuck with X1, as X2 isn't XP compatible, but isn't that a Roland corporate blunder, since HALF of the world's PCs (millions and millions) are still on XP?  I have over a hundred plugins and softsynths, and these things represent a SUBSTANTIAL investment.  I've read all the posts regarding operating system upgrades, and more than a few folks have run into this and that no longer working.  That would suck.
 
I can't for the life of me see how running X1 under my XP license would be anything more than WAY SO MUCH MORE better, and X1 already was working like a champ. 
 
What would I really get performance-wise for moving to Win7/8?  And is that performance jump worth risking a few thousand dollars for hardware/software that will no longer work?
 
My laptop runs Win7 and I don't see any great performance jump in applications like video-recoding to go on a DVD.  The Win7 machine is a 'bit' faster, but it is also a quad-core, while this DAW XP machine is running on an obsolete duo.  My take that moving to Win7 is not worth the risk.
 
 

As long as XP supports the new hardware, then it should work fine. If you want to keep your setup the same, then that would be the easiest way to do it because some things may not run in Win 7/8.

I still have my old DAW PC on Win XP because it would be too much trouble to upgrade it and XP was also the most compatible with older software. So I keep that around to run older stuff that I want to have access to, and I run the new DAW PC on Win 7 (and eventually Win 8).

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

OK, thanks, Chief!!!  I have to admit that I refused to migrate off of Windows98 until my DA card died.  I think I was running ProAudio 7 back then.  So will likely stay with XP for now.  When I do this upgrade to my hardware, I have a clone of my drive and intend to move my old hardware and all my toys to a junk case/power supply.  I'll get my hands on a Win7 upgrade install, and then experiment with what works and what doesn't after that.  If that turns out to not be a mess, then I will move my studio DAW to Win7.  That might be the safest smartest way to approach this.  

As to my other post about 'freezing', this has only been a problem with this acoustic project I am recording because of all the effects, V-vocal, and autotune. 

I actually like Win 7 better than XP, especially running the 64-bit version, but XP is useful for running older stuff.

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

X2 is probably not XP incompatible, rather Cake wont supply official support for it. Staying on 32 bit means you will be limited to 4gb ram, no chance of upgrade. There should be no risk upgrading to 7. Only issue is if you have a legacy soundcard, you may have trouble finding drivers. I have come across no software that wont run on 7 that I used with XP. 7 is a much better windows experience, i wouldnt think twice about upgrading.

I recently put XP forever on the shelf and went to Windows 7 64 bit. XP was solid as a rock for me, and so is Win7. I am glad I made the change. The only thing I had to change was my sound card because Emu did not have drivers for windows 7, only a beta--and I wasn't going to chance it. Other than that the transition was smooth and painless and now I am finally in 64 bit land! OP you might want to consider making the jump.

According to data published on the market share of OS's, there were almost twice as many Windows 7 users as there were XP users as of October 2012. 

People upgrade their computers to handle newer software technology. And in the process, they usually upgrade their OS too. Of course there are many XP holdouts....virtually every hospital still uses XP on their computers, for instance. 

DAW users are a different story. While it's true that there are those who insist that  "I will keep XP on my DAW till the day I die," the fact remains that audio production is evolving, requires more and more processing power and the corresponding upgrade in hardware will more often than not be accompanied by an OS upgrade as well. 

Any software company with a finite budget (i.e. all of them) have to make decisions about what they can and can't continue to support. Sooner or later the 12 year old OS is going to get passed over in favor of development for new OS's. They're not only thinking about the present, they're thinking about the future as well. And XP is not the future. 

I would just upgrade. Windows 7 has a smaller footprint and surpasses XP in many benchmarks - amazing considering how much more advanced it is in terms of features. Don't worry about compatibility. If you're worried about your old 32 bit plugs then just upgrade to the 32 bit version of X2. Although you're limiting yourself in terms of available memory. 

I too was a die-hard fan of XP Pro, but I also loved the Windows 7 rewrite of the kernel that they did.  Windows 7 is simply a better platform than Windows XP.

While there is nothing wrong with remaining on XP, if that is what you want to do, you now have the capacity to run in 64-bit mode, and if your existing plugins are VST, rather than DXI, then many if not most or all would run in a 64-bit Sonar implementation.  You can also pick up another 4 GB of memory for like $20-$25 these days, and having 8 GB of memory in a 64-bit Windows would give you a bunch more room for running things with less headache than trying to run it all in the 3.5-ish GB of memory that you can access in 32-bit Windows.  The extra memory lets you load up more synths and effects and such, without having to freeze tracks as often (I never have to freeze tracks - but I have way more memory, but even when I had 8 GB of memory, the need to freeze simply went away).

There are lots of other things to get into one way or the other with regard to 32-bit versus 64-bit, but I would suggest that getting the ability to access more than 4 GB of memory is a significant benefit, and worthy of consideration.

I hope some of that helps, 

Bob Bone

Win 7 smaller footprint?

What do you mean by this?  I noticed that as far as taking up disk space, Win 7 64bit is way bigger then XP.  I've uninstalled some uneeded stuff (games, outlook etc) on my DAW PC and am happy with Win7 64bit but still wonder what all those GBs of stuff are inside the Windows folder itself.

If the new motherboard supports it, you can pick up 16 GB of memory for something like $69, which would be audio software paradise, with regard to memory.

Bob Bone